The ambulance had arrived, and the police had shown up with it.

As it turned out, the girl whose parent’s owned the house wasn’t yet eighteen – and a few people were taken aside for questioning.

A huge group of people crowded around Lucas, congratulating him.

Damien watched, sadness filling his chest. He was about to make his way back home, but he decided to sit down on a wall nearby, letting the smell of the cold night air hit his nostrils.

He had by some means managed to get his lighter to work again, and at long last, he took his desired nicotine break. He hadn’t seen when Lucas made his exit; only becoming aware that Lucas had come over, when he placed himself on the wall beside him.

“It’s a bloody good thing I’m training to become a doctor.” Lucas let out a small chuckle. “You know, the dude had a nasty altercation with a knife.” He explained. “I’m assuming that there wasn’t a corkscrew available to open that bottle of wine...”

Damien exhaled, letting the smoke which filled his lungs escape into the sky.

He turned to look at Lucas. “Alcohol does make people into fools, doesn’t it?”

Lucas scoffed. “Indeed, it does.”

Both of them were silent. The street they were on didn’t have that many homes, which was the most probable reason as to why the police hadn’t been called sooner. Damien had always found a certain kind of beauty in suburbia. Beauty in looking at the structures which other humans had built, seeing them go through their day, how nature and humanity collided... And so, in a weird way, the night couldn’t have possibly ended any better.

As his cigarette grew shorter and shorter, he found himself not really wanting this moment to end.

Observing the odd beauty of a populated area at night, sat next to an attractive stranger who he’d likely never talk to ever again. He didn’t want any of it to end; he comprehended that this would be a snippet in time that he remembered every single detail of: the emotions he felt, how the air brushed across his skin, and the exact ideas which were racing through his head right then.

Eventually, Damien could feel that the moment was over and he put out his cigarette.

Before he had gotten off of the wall, however, Lucas started to speak. “So, about before-″ Flabbergasted that Lucas would try to stop him, Damien craned his neck to face him. “I was going to ask you if...”

His nervousness from before had returned, along with the redness on his face.

“You were all on your own; I wondered if... you’d like to hang out with me and my friends?”

Damien grimaced. “God, do I really look that lonely?”

Lucas stammered, rushing to find a way in which he could come off as less rude. “No! Um...” This was a futile attempt. “Okay, maybe a little bit.” Lucas admitted. “But also... I don’t know, man.”

It was clear that Lucas was struggling to find the correct words to say, and Damien found that charming. Just fifteen minutes ago, he hadn’t had any issues with using his charisma to calm an entire room of people down – in spite of his drunkenness.

“I’d-″ Lucas stopped himself. “We’d, really like if you wanted to hang with us.” He paused. “It’s no big deal if not-″

“Yes.” Damien interrupted him, his lips now upturned. “As long as that’s okay?”

Lucas’ fidgeting slowed, and he let out a sigh of relief.

“It should be more than okay!” He peeked toward the direction of the house. “Come on.” Lucas got back on his feet, and threw an arm around Damien’s shoulders. “We’ll walk you home.”

All Damien could hear was his mother yelling at him. He refused to take in much of what she was saying, opting instead to let his eyes scan all of the objects in her office.

He took particular notice of the aloe vera plant which she’d recently placed in the corner of the room. She had bought the thing from CoinLand when it had been on offer, and hadn’t shut up about it for a good while.

She was entirely capable of purchasing much more expensive specimens; but she had been taking good care of it, to the point where one couldn’t tell how cheaply she’d acquired it.

He also gazed upon her desk plate. In a debossed font, ‘Lori Prisma’ could be read upon it. Damien had no idea why she bothered to display such a thing; everyone knew who she was.

Lori’s hands slammed against her desk, bringing Damien’s awareness out of his musings. He jolted, his fear engulfing any ideas he could hope to conjure.

“I can’t believe that you would pull something like this!” Lori yelled; her amber eyes full of malice.

In spite of his inward fear, Damien couldn’t stop himself from objecting to his mother’s reaction. He clenched his fists and placed his right hand atop his chest, standing up straight. “I didn’t pull anything! You forced me to marry-”

“Goddamn it!” Lori cried, and Damien promptly hunched back over – his resolve to fight gone. She sunk back down onto her chair, rejecting to give even a single glance to her son’s direction. “Just leave! I do not have the energy to think about this!”

No longer wishing to argue, and wanting to get as far away as he could from her – Damien left the room, taking care to make as little noise as possible when he did.

All things considered; it hadn’t turned out as badly as any of the scenarios in his head had. If anything, Damien was actually astonished that it had taken eight days for her to find out about the divorce.

He walked through the hallway, and checked his phone. He discerned that he had a few minutes to kill before his planned meeting with Lucas.

The two of them had talked a lot in the week since they had met. As it turned out, Lucas was also gay; and after Damien told him about everything, he was genuinely speechless upon learning about Damien having been married.

Sure, it had been kept under wraps as much as was possible, but Damien was nonetheless stunned that people didn’t know every single detail about his life.

He’d gotten a message from his mother earlier on. Already equipped with the knowledge that he was to be yelled at; he’d talked to Lucas about it. Lucas had been adamant that they met afterwards, not wanting to leave him alone after receiving verbal abuse.

Damien situated himself beside the left door of the town hall. As usual, he lit a cigarette and pondered to himself.

It was strange. It was incredibly strange.

Last week, he had been hell-bent on dealing with the fallout of all of this alone. He had expected that he’d have to, that was the logical conclusion that anybody in his situation would come to. How in the world could he have ever calculated that he’d go from being isolated, to suddenly having people who cared about him overnight?

He was still having a lot of trouble wrapping his head around it all. Damien still very much saw himself as an outsider.

Morgan had told a joke; hell, Damien couldn’t even remember the contents of it – yet, he still remembered how embarrassed he had been when everyone else had laughed along with her, and he had just stared off into space. He’d taken a very literal meaning to the joke, and had tried to express his confusion. Needless to say, Damien thought himself to be massive idiot when she had to go out of her way to explain it.

Afterwards, they’d perceived his embarrassment, and they all tried their best to make him feel welcomed. Years of being an outcast made it hard for Damien to be sure that they were being sincere; however, he appreciated their kindness.

Time and time again, Damien got lost in his head so much, that it took an outside influence to snap him out of it.

Lucas waved his arms at Damien. “Hey!” He hollered.

Damien turned up to face Lucas. He wore his orange jacket; Lucas had gotten it back once Eli had managed to track him down, and the guy had even gone out of his way to properly launder it for him.

Damien quietly admired the sparkle present in Lucas’ eyes, warmly smiling at him, as he ran up the town hall steps.

Catching his breath, Lucas took note of the cigarette in Damien’s hand. Damien prepared himself to hear another one of his friend’s anti-smoking tirades.

“You should stop smoking.” He gazed at Damien, sternly; a few seconds later, he began to grin cheekily. “Those things will kill you, before you know it!”

Damien chuckled, and threw it to the ground to appease Lucas. “It’ll take more than some tobacco to do me in.” He extinguished the final flickers of light coming from it with his boot.

Lucas led the way, and Damien stood beside him.

“So, uh... Damien?” Lucas composed the contents of his question. “How’d it all go?”

Damien didn’t want to lie, but he also didn’t want to share too many details. “Better than I expected.”

Lucas didn’t say anything else until they were a few yards away from the gate.

“How do you feel?”

Although he didn’t show it then, that was a question which Damien hadn’t been expecting to answer. Obviously, it was a commonsense question, but Damien just did not have a single idea as to how to respond to it.

Once he’d gotten home after taking the day off, Damien all but threw his briefcase onto the sofa. It took him almost no time at all to hectically bolt upstairs to his bedroom.:

He couldn’t be bothered to change his clothes; he threw himself onto his bed, pulled his blanket up over his body, and closed his eyes.

All Damien wanted, was to go back to sleep; instead, his head was filled with every mistake he had ever made. He curled up, but failed to make himself feel more comfortable.

After Lucas, he’d wholly intended to never pursue any kind of relationship ever again.

But when he’d seen River for the first time... and when they had met again three years after that...

The two of them had gotten to know one another’s intricacies over that six-month period. It hadn’t been easy - particularly considering River’s inability to communicate with Jagger properly. (Until very recently.)

After all of the heartache, he didn’t even have that stupid necklace anymore; nor did he have the energy to try to retrieve it, either.

So what if he’d never completely dealt with his feelings regarding Lucas? He didn’t deserve to have all of that baggage brought back to the surface!

No, Damien recognised that this was entirely his fault.

If he had actually kept his word - if he had actually begun to fix the damage his family had caused Angel’s Light, ever since they founded it... If he hadn’t-

‘You’re pathetic.’ His own voice resounded in his head, repeatedly. And, his inner monologue was right.

He still loved Lucas. He still loved River, and he still loved Jagger.

Not wanting to wallow in his self-pity any longer, Damien opened his eyes.

He stared at all of the objects in his room. There were the basic things: like his desk, the vinyl’s which hung on his wall, the faux cow print rug...

At the very end of the room, he spied his largest poster.

It featured a muscular man with the head of a cat, rendered in early 2000s 3D. The letters: S.K.B.D.F, were printed at the bottom – along with the logo for the OtoMac GameTerminal 2. By all means, it was very out of place – and didn’t fit his aesthetic at all.

Upon looking at the poster, Damien despaired a little, but he became compelled to rise from his bed and walk across to it. His eyes became glazed, and he closely examined the poster. Damien caught the way in which the light interacted with the glossy paper, and how age had caused the edges to become slightly damaged.

“I should check the leaderboards.” He murmured. Damien turned around, and went back downstairs. He plodded across the room in a clear path to the sofa, opened his briefcase, and retrieved his laptop.

Typing in the URL, Damien didn’t have to look at the top place speedrun for long, before he realised that he’d been dethroned.